The Lord of the Flies
by michael1812
Summary: Dexter can't sleep. Flies zoom through his bedroom as moonlight hits his window. His thoughts bring him to a dark place inside himself. A darkness he had accepted a long time ago.


Dexter rolled over to his other side. His left shoulder pressed subtly into the mattress.

He gazed at nothing in particular, seeing nothing but darkness near the dark shape which resembled a cabinet.

It was hot. Another familiar heat wave had struck Miami and left it gasping for breath and cool air and a lot of water.

Dexter could feel his lips were dry, and his throat was sore, but he didn't mind.

The sound of the ceiling fan, which had never bothered him before, now haunted him.

In a couple years time he would not hear that frequency and sound anymore, but that night it annoyed him.

The sound obscured and hid the noise of the flies which terrorized his room. His hands were aching to squash their tiny bodies into one single, tiny, little red spot on the wall.

'_I don't believe in reincarnation. How many souls will I have murdered if peop__le really did reincarnate and then came back to life as a fly?'_

Dexter rolled over to his other side again, pressing his right shoulder into the comfy mattress of the bed. His face was bathing in moonlight, and the voices inside his head faded away.

'_Those innocent flies…'_

Dexter could hear them in his bedroom, flying somewhere in the darkness as they awaited the chance to sting him and drink his blood.

'_They're only trying to do what instinct told them to do.'_

'_Survive.'_

He pressed his eyes closed. The moonlight was blinding him, and he was sweating.

'_How many flies have I killed?'_

'_How many humans have I killed?'_

'_There is a difference between flies and man. We have a choice. We can make that decision not to kill, not to take an innocent man's life.'_

Dexter already imagined himself at work; in his mind he was walking through the doors of the police-station and he said hello to his co-workers accompanied by a kind gesture of his hand and a big, happy smile which hurt the muscles in his cheeks.

'_I imagine all my victims could not possibly fit in this small bedroom, if they would decide to haunt me tonight. To show me the error of my ways. Like ghosts from 'A Christmas Carol'. Only life doesn't really work that way.'_

Dexter turned his head and opened his eyes to glance into the darkness of his bedroom again. He was only checking to see if there were any ghosts standing there, watching him. Like that tiny, tiny conscious at the back of his soul (three stairs down, straight on through the dark tunnel, second door to your left.)

He was only checking to see whether the monsters he was imagining could be actually be real.

You could never be sure. Some things in this world are just as mysterious as they were two hundred years ago.

'_I was probably the only one who didn't fear the monster under my bed. I never looked. I never even glanced. I just didn't care. I was __too busy fearing the monster inside my soul.'_

Dexter smiled.

'_If I even have one. The concept of a soul is just as ridiculous as the concept of heaven or hell. Only a bit more __convincing.'_

Dexter suddenly sat upright in bed and turned on the small light on the cabinet next to his bed.

His eyes were searching for his next victim.

'_I respect the flies , but that doesn't mean I have to like them.'_

The ceiling fan was rotating far above his head, waving renewed air into his face.

'_I wonder: is it the flies, or my victims that keep me awake at night?'_

With one sudden, gracious move Dexter hit the wall behind his right shoulder.

He then looked at his hand and saw the tiny dot of red, bug blood.

'_That's one down.'_

Dexter wiped the blood off his hand by wiping it to the mattress.

He was sweating. He could feel the drops slowly slipping off his forehead, but Dexter didn't care.

'_I respect the flies, for they are creatures of instinct. Like every animal on this blue planet, they search for food to sustain them, and sometimes they won't stop at anything to get what they want.__ They don't fear the deadly hands of the humans. Not when their survival is at stake. Blood is their life.'_

'_And so is mine.'_

Dexter got up from bed. His eyes had adjusted to the dark setting of his bedroom.

He easily walked through the darkness, into his bathroom. He turned on the light and looked at himself in the mirror, leaning with his hands on the white basin. He was wearing only his grey shorts. His chest was bare.

'_Am I like a fly? Craving blood because of instinct, because of a primal urge?'_

Dexter turned on the tap, after which cold water descended upon his hands. He used his hands to dip his face into water. Drops of cold water clung to his face and slowly cascaded down.

That cold, tingling sensation was a relief. That was just what he needed.

'_No. Maybe once I was under the misconception that this __strange fascination with blood was something I needed, something I thrived on. Perhaps like a vampire, the red liquid made me feel more alive than I ever believed I was. I did not drink it, but I fed on it nevertheless.'_

'_But with age comes wisdom, and I know now that blood is not everything. I have learned to control my addiction, haven't I?'_

'_Haven't I?'_

Dexter lifts his head and gazes at his own reflection in the mirror, and the darkness inside the pupils of his eyes.

'_Harry's code is what stops me. Harry's code is what makes me what I am today.'_

'_Human. Or something that looks like it.'_

Dexter turned off the light in the bathroom, before he entered his living room.

He opened his refrigerator and took out a bottle of orange juice. He twisted the cap off and put the bottle to his lips and then he drank from it.

He sighed, feeling the juice fill his digestive system, giving it something to do, and he put the bottle back in the refrigerator before he twisted the cap back on.

He looked around him three times before he disabled his air conditioning unit and took the lid off. His small little box of trophies was waiting for him in the darkness inside the wall.

Dexter calmed down again as he touched the beautiful, wooded exterior of the small box.

'_I wonder what normal people think about when they're all by their selves. Do they think of victims, murder, secrets and blood? Or do only vampires dream of the perfect kill?'_

He opened the box and looked down upon the little slides. His trophies. His addiction.

His collection. His weakness. His strength.

Dexter filled his lungs with air, almost sniffing the slides as he tried to feel alive again.

And it always worked.

'_The killers I catch have such twisted views upon their work. They lie and cheat and steal their way out, but I can always catch them when they lie. I can taste it.'_

With his hand he touched the slides.

'_They kill innocent lives for personal gain, and they get away with it.'_

'_They shouldn't.'_

Dexter closed the box quickly. His private bubble had been pierced. His moment of bliss was gone.

In his mind, voices yelled and eyes were staring at him in the darkness, in every shadow of his apartment.

However, Dexter never lost his cool, remaining perfectly calm at all times.

He perfectly placed the box right where he had found it before. He then put everything back in its rightful place and pretended like that perfect moment of bliss never happened.

Casually, he returned to his bed, imagining how a flawless knife pierces a murderer's flesh.

'_Blood. Veins. Arteries. Strength. Volume. Pulse. Organs. Functions. Senses. Pain. Life.'_

'_There is so much more to death than meets the eye. And they don't appreciate it. Not like I do, anyway. The humans I kill have no respect for their victims. They take away their lives so easily, without remorse or regret.'_

'_Who am I to deny them that same right? To die that very same way, by the hand of a killer. A vampire. A fly.'_

Dexter laid himself and his body to rest in the big bed, thinking about blood spatters on a white sheet. Gunshots. Blunt objects and severe head trauma. Injuries to the neck. A slice in a dying man's cheek. A drop of blood clenched between two glass slides, hidden away in his apartment, to be seen by his eyes only.

'_I live by a code. May it be instinct, obsession or rules, I honour them. I honour life. Embrace it.__ Not like flies, who risk their lives in pursuit of mere drops of blood. Not like vampires, who hide in the shadows and suck human blood to stay alive. Not like humans, who neglect it, mistreat it, disrespect it and most importantly, take it away.'_

Dexter gazed upon the rotating ceiling fan. He ignored the moonlight which shined upon his face.

'_So I'm neither. Not animal. Not a mythical monster. Not human.'_

'_Then what am I? Truth is, I don't know.'_

He rolled over again, and again, until he was lying with his face in his pillow.

'_All I know is…I'm Dexter.'_

A fly had landed on his arm. Within a split second Dexter slapped it dead, leaving only a drop of blood behind.

'_My work is done.'_

Dexter smiled before he finally fell asleep.


End file.
